The Weight Of Fire
by KatyaX
Summary: Hermione inadvertently asks something of Snape, and finds her needs met all too well.
1. Chapter 1

"The weight of water," the bored voice drawled on, "is dependent on its mass, or more simply, the amount. Also its density, which can change with altitude or temperature. The maximum density of water is at 3.98 degrees Celsius."

A wave of the long-fingered hand and several simple but informative diagrams appeared on the chalk board behind him. They came to life, their white lines delicately  
vacillating to demonstrate fluidity. "Water becomes even less dense upon freezing, expanding nine percent. This causes an unusual phenomenon: ice floats upon water,  
and so water organisms can live inside a partly frozen pond because the water on the bottom has a temperature of around four degrees Celsius."

Fourteen quills scratched obediently as the morning wore on towards lunch. Students stole glances towards the small windows near the ceiling, imagining the misty fog  
of the morning burning off as the sun rose higher. Breakfast digested. Quidditch in three hours. The weekend waited patiently ahead.

Severus Snape, Potions Master and impromptu chemistry teacher, opened his notebooks and marked his place with a ratty ribbon as he inhaled and continued his longest recitation yet.

"On 7 April 1795, the gram was defined in France to be equal to 'the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to a cube of one hundredth of a meter, and to the  
temperature of the melting ice.' For practical purposes though, a metallic reference standard was required, one thousand times more massive, the kilogram. Work was  
therefore commissioned to determine precisely how massive one liter of water was. In spite of the fact that the decreed definition of the gram specified water at 0 °C—a  
highly stable temperature point—the scientists chose to redefine the standard and to perform their measurements at the most stable density point: the temperature at which water reaches maximum density, which was measured at the time as 4 °C."

Hermione Granger's father had been a botanist by hobby, and it was his aptitude in sciences that had piqued her interests in biology, chemistry and physics. As early as  
five or six, she was putting together erector sets and using dish detergent to study the Kaye effect. Her first Styrofoam solar system was more for the purposes of  
demonstrating Kepler's third law of planetary motion than identifying Neptune from Pluto. In fact, she'd been secretly pleased when her teacher at the time was rendered speechless during Hermione's presentation. Of course, at six, she'd been the only student to have a presentation prepared, but that was besides the point.

Miss Granger, third row, first seat, legs crossed at the ankle, found it all very interesting, even if a bit basic for her tastes. Still, she scratched her quill along in time to Professor Snape's words. She wondered vaguely what a sonnet would sound like, bent by his voice, consonants sharpened by his tongue, vowels rounded by his lips. Her brow furrowed and she shook her head as though a gnat had entered her ear. What a random thought, she dismissed.

"And so," Snape continued, sounding even a bit bored by his own topic of choice, "we arrive at the crossroads of Muggle science and Wizarding theory. We have  
discussed the physical principles of water and those principles' effects as the state of mater changes. By simply cooking with water, a great number of physical traits are  
observed. For homework you will compose three feet on the properties of pure water and physical traits observed when used in any quantity in potions making."

He closed his notebook and glanced up at the class. Surprisingly no one's attention was visibly wandering, nor was anyone groaning or rolling his or her eyes. Snape's face didn't show it but he felt quite satisfied and unexpectedly said, "I am dismissing class twenty minutes early today. I suggest that anyone who received a ninety-five percent or worse on yesterday morning's assignment stay until the official end of class in order to review and achieve a higher score on his or her exam this Tuesday. Otherwise, class dismissed."

Hermione, having received a ninety-nine on the assignment Snape had spoken of, began to gather her things into her bag. She was a bit lost in contemplating what she  
would do with the next free twenty minutes when Snape addressed her. She very nearly didn't hear him.

"Sorry, Sir?"

"I said, meet me in my office."

Too good to be true. Always. Hermione never got out of anything. There was always a Hippogrif to save, or a prophecy to protect, or a Professor asking her to stay after  
class when everyone else got to go off to lunch early. What the _hell_?

Snape piled his notes on top of his books and gestured to them with a curt nod of his head. "Get those for me, will you?" he said, a definite tone of derisiveness added for good measure. Hermione stopped dead, backtracked, and picked up the half dozen texts and personal notes of Severus Snape. She literally bit her tongue to keep from protesting. She might have been one of the three main people to defeat the most evil and rather powerful dark wizard of all time, but she was back in school now, by her own choice; firing off a sarcastic, snotty comment, no matter how witty, was not within her privileges.

As she entered Snape's private office her skin prickled with goosebumps. It was depressingly stone cold in there, and darker than she'd remembered. He hadn't lit a fire in days, perhaps, and there wasn't even a flicker from the sconces. "Put them on the work table, please," he said, catching her off guard yet again. The man had thanked her, and Harry and Ron, in his own terse way, months ago after the battle against his false master had been won. But he'd returned to teaching with the same sardonic, snaky attitude he'd always had those previous six years, and, Hermione expected, the nine before that. "Please" was simply pushing it.

She set the books and papers down carefully where he indicated, stood quietly, and tried not to look too put off.

Snape gestured vaguely at the fireplace and flames roared to life before settling down enough to catch the older sooty logs. Magic fire always impressed Hermione. It flared faster and heated a room quicker than a fire made with matches. Her physical discomfort abated, she refocused on Snape. She realized he was looking at her just as intently.

"At what point did I lose your interest?" he asked with a hint of genuine concern.

Hermione, for all she had seen in her life, raised her eyebrows in confused shock. "I'm so sorry, Professor?" she said questioningly. "I don't understand."

"Isn't that really the sad point, Miss Granger? That you understand perhaps all too well?"

Hermione's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. She stared off to the left a bit stupidly. "What?" she finally settled on.

"You cannot hope to convince me that after seven short years, you have divulged all the secrets potion making holds?"

"Certainly not."

"And as carbon is a basic building block of life, is not water an inevitable and irreplaceable constant?" Snape drew his wand and poised it over the mouth of an empty glass beaker. "Aguamente," he pronounced clearly, and a gentle stream of pure clear water poured forth. "Miss Granger, I suggest that there is nothing so complex as  
simplicity. That the greatest questions find the deepest answers floating quite near the surface." The beaker filled, halfway, two-thirds. "I propose that water is boring to  
most because it seems quite mundane, and therefore no answers are found because no questions are posed."

"I would never have thought a person cound find water so interesting," she ventured. "I wonder though, if there will be another handful, let alone thirteen other people,  
who will feel that way."

Surprisingly Snape did not snap at her, insult her, or even sneer. He seemed appraising. The water reached a centimeter tot he brim of the beaker and he flicked his wrist to stop the flow. "Thirteen. Then you find it interesting, do you?"

"Yes. Of course I find the simplicity of water interesting. Though not exactly fascinating, or all that challenging, as you say. In fact I find it more fascinating than  
challenging."

"Then a challenge is what you are asking me for?"

The odd sensation of catching herself mid-fall startled her, and the slightest sparkle of adrenaline burst under her chest. Like walking on eggshells and feeling them give  
way and not being anything to do about it, Hermione felt herself step on a potential crack. He was very nearly smiling.

"I suppose what I am asking for," she replied slowly, "is something that might possibly confuse me."

"That, Miss Granger, is a dangerous request."

Hermione's instincts quelled beneath the flesh of her wand hand. She'd stood against a band of Death Eaters and had felt more sure of herself. Why, now, was she so sure  
that Snape looked as though an asp ready to strike?

"The German Muggle Einstein said, 'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to  
move in the opposite direction.'" He stepped around the work table towards her and drew her attention to the end of his wand again. "Hold out your hand."

Fleetingly and foolishly she thought of rulers and knuckles and Muggle primary school. She resisted stepping backward.

"Miss Granger," he said quietly. "Hold. Out. Your. Hand."

She thought better of questioning or resisting and held her left hand out to him. The wand tip touched her open palm and he breathed, "Haud exuro incendia..."

Trust was not a word she readily applied to Severus Snape. But as the flamed licked her fingertips and did not burn, she peeled back and exposed a new layer of respect for  
the man. Gently and almost seductively tongues of warm orange flame, reds, blues, whites, yellows, mixed and parried, embraced her hand. Her shock outweighed her fear and she became entranced. She looked up at Snape in wonder; this was different than the fire which warmed his grate.

"Sir?" she whispered, afraid she might extinguish the glowing ball before her.

His voice came equally low, almost a whisper too, but far less unsteady than his student's. "I wish for you to answer me this, Miss Granger: what is the weight of fire?

When you have answered that, you may return to class. But in the meantime," he said straightening, for he'd bent to observe the flames caressing her fingers, "attempt to expand on Einstein's insights, will you?" He turned from her and said gruffly, "Dismissed!"

Tearing her interest away from the flames engulfing but not harming her hand, Hermione looked up and was about to speak when she suddenly looked quite determined, shook her hand as though a bee had landed upon it, and gathered her things together.

There was no one left in the classroom as she exited the office. Had there been, someone might have wondered what she meant by stopping in the middle of the room,  
double-taking back at the office door, examining her hand, and then marching out of the room and down the dungeon corridor.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione felt like mold

Hermione felt like mold. She placed another box of matches on the work bench in front of her and glared at them. They were her enemy now, it seemed, her nemesis in the never-ending battle against logic and science.

Was it science? This impossible question, was it science? Wasn't it just some bizarre challenge that Snape had invented with which to confound her and amuse himself?

The problem was, fire actually _did_ have weight. Albeit not easily _measurable_ without a device that could calculate and then weigh the combusting particles in the air, but there _were_ ways.

Her skin, where it was not singed or pinked with burns, felt covered in sweat and dust and the inevitable moistness of sitting around in the dungeons all week. She'd taken his advice and skived off Potions since that day in his office. She didn't even care what they were learning in class; Seamus's mutterings to himself about grumblebumble parts at the breakfast table only distracted her, so she'd taken to eating in her makeshift lab, when she did bother to eat.

Perhaps, she thought with an ironic smirk, this was why Snape was so gaunt. At least she wasn't working with potion ingredients. What a pain in the arse it would be to pick up in her haste what she thought was pumpkin juice and swallow frog's blood instead. The thought of it made her shudder and she quickly went back to the matter at hand.

Snape had looked almost challenging when he'd suggested it. Not the usual sort of challenging, the kind where he knew he had you in a corner and was just itching for you to try and fast-talk your way out of explaining why you were sneaking around somewhere you weren't supposed to at three in the morning. But that thirsty sort of challenge where he was almost daring you to theorize or hypothesize, or even take an educated guess, because he was actually interested in what you might say next.

It was... Unnerving.

Not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time, Hermione almost felt like she was on a somewhat even playing field with Severus Snape. The last time had been nearly a year ago, what felt like a lifetime ago, when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him; wands pointed at the onslaught of Death Eaters headed their way. It had been him and her. Him and her. Neither sure if Harry or Voldemort were dead or alive, neither sure if there was any reason to keep fighting.

But that night seemed almost lost now in the day-to-day of returning to Hogwarts to finish out her Seventh year.

Now, he flung exam papers back at her, passed her in the halls without a second look, rolled his eyes at her as her answers to his questions began to include too much detail. This was the first time he had singled her out since… She'd never been tremendously wonderful at healing spells. Knitting organic matter back into wholeness was not for those who did badly in Charms, that was for sure. And she'd had a decent background of study in biology. But what she'd done to Snape's neck was a goddamned bloody miracle. He'd thanked her, once, before she'd decided to come back to school to put a close on her formal education. It was only once, but it was more than she'd thought he'd do. Well, she thought, shaking her head as though the thought was an annoying fly buzzing around her hair, none of that mattered now. So what, he thanked her and said not another word to her since? So what if this was the first time he'd more than looked in her direction since last May? So what if she had wondered about the tripping of sonnets over the man's tongue?

"So what?!" she said out loud. She startled herself. Hermione looked around the empty room as though the furniture would start snickering at her outburst. She ran a sooty hand through her hair and shook her head again, annoyed, then muttered something to the effect of "going stark raving mad…." before returning to her project.

Three boxes of matches later, Hermione returned to her room, one hand bandaged in gauze pilfered from the infirmary, the other tightly clutching a bottle of iodine.


End file.
